Would Taxing Marijuana Sales In L.A. Be Legal?

L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn has proposed that maybe the city ought to tax medical marijuana sales. After all, there's a lot cash being made, and L.A. has been in constant budget trouble in the last year or so. It could use the money.

But here's the question: Would it be legal? The City Attorney's office has said probably not:

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The letter of the law states that medical marijuana is not to be sold for-profit but rather shared along the seriously ill grower-members of collectives. But most L.A. pot-shops hear more cha-ching than Starbucks.

Our commenter of the day, spinsters, questions what the city is thinking when its own legal counsel says taxing what is supposed to be a nonprofit industry isn't exactly kosher:

So the city's attorney informs Janice Hahn that LA would be sanctioning an illegal activity.

and Janice Hahn totally ignores that, makes a quick rationalization to do away with the fact that you CANNOT tax a not for profit!

and LA wonders why it has so many law suits on this issue. The city council members don't listen to their own legal council? What are the tax payers paying this Senior Assistant City Attorney Pete Echeverria for if his advice falls on deaf ears?

the Assistant city attorney is telling janice hahn that she will be sanctioning illegal marijuana sales and she says "no the way I see it"

LA officials you are a joke!

What do you think? Should the city get its cut of this thriving business, or should we continue to pretend like it's all a nonprofit endeavor for the "seriously ill."

Dennis Romero is an L.A. Weekly staff writer. He formerly worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian and, as a young stringer, the New York Times.